


the love within you (can heal these tears that burn)

by moonsandstar_s



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-02
Updated: 2015-09-02
Packaged: 2018-04-18 18:25:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4716077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonsandstar_s/pseuds/moonsandstar_s
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[ or the one where laura really, really feels like she’s breaking, melting, falling. ] </p><p>/ / </p><p>Darkness creeps into daylight<br/>you’re leaving<br/>treasures hidden in our mind<br/>the memories<br/>the time we had was fleeting<br/>the strength is just believing now</p><p>- as you go, red</p>
            </blockquote>





	the love within you (can heal these tears that burn)

_[ or the one where laura really, really feels like she’s breaking, melting, falling. ]_

_/ /_

_Darkness creeps into daylight  
 you're leaving  
 treasures hidden in our mind  
 the memories   
the time we had was fleeting   
the strength is just believing now _

_\- as you go, red_

_/ /_

_**rating** / t   _

* * *

“Would you care?”

That’s how it starts: from edging around words they don’t know how to say, carefully avoiding the other’s gaze, until Carmilla suddenly, impossibly, breaches the rift between them. 

Laura looks up, sees Carmilla watching her, and a knife goes straight to her core.  She looks stoic, vexingly blank, and Laura feels a lump in her throat- at the thought of Carmilla hurt, Carmilla dead, Carmilla gone... 

 _I felt that before, and when I lost you, I lost a part of who I was. Can’t you see that?_ She wants to wail aloud. _That grief? That sorrow? That unrelenting loss?_

“How can you _say_ that?” Laura stares at her, feeling clouded, feeling something sinking like a stone in her chest. Carmilla’s eyes are piercing- two dark pieces of fire, but she’s unwavering, and not a flicker of emotion crosses her expression. Laura wants to take the lamp that’s sending undulating golden light through the room: she wants to take it, and to smash it, and to point at the shards and tell Carmilla as she looks at the shattered pieces: _here, this is how I feel when you’re near you’re near me, and it’s_ killing _me_.

“Do you think I hid you here after everything because I don’t care?” she demands, wanting to see something in Carmilla’s eyes, something to suggest she _cares_. Something behind that glass, that façade, that damned ruse. “Because the thought of something happening to you doesn’t make me feel like I can’t breathe? And I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel around you, or what I’m supposed to do.” She cuts her words short- three words that she’s come to realize as they crash into her sleep, tearing her thoughts, her mind. 

It’s 2:49 am, and she’s never felt less sleepless, and she’s never felt so _broken._

Something does flash across Carmilla’s face then- something thawed, her face no longer chilled. “Laura, I—”

“Because I _love_ you,” Laura bursts out, words, jagged like angel’s wings, tearing through her lungs in fire, like a crumpling exhale of defeat. Like a fleeting image, Carmilla’s face— angry, soured, full of pain— _you can’t expect all that to evaporate because I love you!_ — flashes through her mind’s eye. “I love you so much it _hurts_ , and it _burns_ and I’m terrified because when I look into your face, I see stone and I realized this; I saw you with that arrow and I felt like I was the one who got shot. I can’t let you go— and we’re all in _danger_ , Carmilla, and I—“

Her words shatter as Carmilla leans forward, something flitting through her face with a wretched strength of emotion, and Carmilla is kissing her hard.

The pain and desperation of it is painful, sending stabbing agony through Laura’s heart, but she doesn’t give a damn, kissing Carmilla back with as much force as she can muster. She can hear her own heart, but from Carmilla, there is silence- bitter and chilled and sweet at once, like death.

And that’s what forces her away. A tumultuous wave of emotion breaks over her— _I want you_ — before she jerks back, breathing hard, eyes prickling. Carmilla looks startled for an instant, before a flicker of panic lights her eyes. 

“I _can’t_ ,” Laura says, voice nearly breaking.

_This isn’t fair to you…_

“Why not?”

And there it is. The ultimatum, everything she can’t have. Carmilla’s close— too close, not close enough.

Laura’s voice is broken. “Because right now I’m really hoping this means you’re going to change.” She grapples for something, some words adequate enough to encompass the sheer cracks that are lacing their spidery veins out across her chest. “You kiss me, and— and it _cracks_ me open, and all my stupid messy hopes come tumbling out— and maybes, and somedays, and how is that _fair_?”

And now? After weeks of stony silence, and then fear, she gets this? To have Carmilla, but be utterly out of reach and unattainable? It feels like a slap in the face, like a great big cosmic joke with a neverending punchline, and she can’t _stand_ it, the heartbreak in Carmilla’s eyes.

_She kisses me and I feel everything, but I kiss her and she splits at the seams, and we’re both fraying. Bittersweet, the dreams we made…_

Her voice is a rasping whisper, riddled with pain, eyes pleading. _Laura, Laura, Laura_ — “Who the hell cares about fair?”

“ _I_ do. I _care_ ,” she says, and it’s so frustrating that she cares like this, to where her ribcages are prison bars around her heart. “I care to not make you change… to love you, Carmilla, in the way you _deserve_.”

Carmilla’s nails dig in her shoulder before she draws away. “Deserve?” She echoes, something flaming in her eyes. She leans forward, and Laura sees the flash of her fangs as she hisses out, “I have only ever wanted you. I hid you from my Mother’s eyes. I’ve defied death. I made a deal with ghosts to keep you safe; can’t that let you know it _kills_ me to love you, and I do it anyways because it would kill me not to?”

They both surge forward at once, and it’s Carmilla’s hands that tangle in Laura’s hair, and Laura runs her nails down Carmilla’s shoulder blades. They’re like the angel wings, ripped away, and when she pulls away, she breathes Carmilla in like a lifeline.

“I love you,” Carmilla whispers against her lips like a prayer. “So, so much. You have to know that. Whatever happens, that will remain the same.”

Laura breathes in, feels Carmilla’s skin. _Whatever happens._ No heartbeat, but only truth, and with something fusing back together within her, she kisses Carmilla, murmuring, “I love you, too.”

The clock hits 3:00, and they pull away just before the gravity of reality breaks over them.


End file.
